She turns coffee into books so she can afford to buy more coffee. And more books.

Tag: cell war notebooks

Today we have a fabulous guest post by Shannon of Duolit who’s stopping by in support of IndiesForward Blog-A-Thon. Welcome back, Shannon!

“Do you know how lucky we are?

Ten years ago, self-published authors were blindly stumbling across the Internet peddling $20 paperbacks exclusively sold on their self-publisher’s website (with some astronomical shipping fees, yes Lulu, I haven’t forgotten) hoping to recoup the thousands of dollars they spent to get the book published in the first place.

Five years ago, self-published authors were trying to get the hang of Twitter (which had just a million users in March 2008, as compared to 500 million now), learn how to format their own eBooks (for distribution through some new thing called Smashwords, launched in May 2008), and get around the growing package fees of the big self-publishers.

Now, here we are in 2013 with a booming marketing resource in social media (Twitter, Facebook, and an author’s new best friend, GoodReads). Even better, the cost to enter the self-publishing arena has been dramatically reduced by the popularity of eBooks. We can now give our readers instant gratification straight to their cellphones, iPads, Kindles, and Nooks (while earning 70% royalties and accessing a worldwide audience).

Seriously, we have it made.

That’s not to say it’s all peaches-and-cream these days. Indies still have to work hard to make it (the definition of “make it” in this case being “Earn enough money to seriously toy with the idea of quitting our day jobs without subsequently having to live on the streets”) but it’s a much more surmountable objective that it was ten (or even five) years ago.

But the new resources at our fingertips also give us the opportunity to go beyond just selling books. We are now in charge of our own legacy. We can make ourselves into the authors we grew up admiring — the authors who inspired us to fall in love with reading and start writing our own tales.

Truly, we’re so lucky.

(Prepare yourself, grab some tissues, this is about to get a little misty for a moment.)

What if we weren’t so lucky?

Imagine what it would be like if you finally achieve your dreams and publish your first book, but you can’t do anything to promote it. You can’t jump on Twitter, make friends on GoodReads, or post weekly blog updates. You can’t meet with book clubs via Skype and discuss their thoughts. You can’t guest post about your publishing experiences. You can’t control your legacy as an author.

You can’t do any of these things, because your book is a memoir of your last seven months of life with cancer.

I was introduced to Julie Forward DeMay’s work, Cell War Notebooks, earlier this month, by Julie’s mother. I read through the book in one sitting (it’s actually a compilation of Julie’s blog, which you can still read here) and was genuinely moved by her unbelievable bravery in the face of something we all hope never to face.

It’s a beautifully written book, funny at times and of course heart-breaking at others. You can check out the paperback on Amazon (all the book’s proceeds go to Julie’s nine year-old daughter).

After speaking with Julie’s family and reading her work, I couldn’t sleep. I couldn’t shake the idea that Julie could be any of us. We’re so lucky, but with one blink that luck could be gone.

I became determined to take up Julie’s flag and march onward, building the legacy she deserves.

But I quickly realized to make the biggest impact, I needed some help. I need a chain of people wrapped ‘round the world to pass Julie’s flag from blog to blog, telling her story and sharing her book with all of our readers.

Thus we have arrived at today, a very lucky day for Julie, when bloggers all over the globe have come together for the IndiesForward blog-a-thon. A group of us (authors, editors, creative types, moms, dads, sisters, brothers, children, friends) are reaching out, sharing Julie’s story on our own blogs and any others that will have us (Thank you, Catherine, for being one of those generous souls!).

We’d love for you to join the movement as well.

Share something about an inspirational experience in your life and a note about Julie’s story on your blog and spread the word on social media. (We have a pre-made kit at Duolit with all the links, images, and blurb text so all you have to do is copy and paste!)

We’re keeping a running tab of participating blogs on selfpublishingteam.com today, too, so make sure to share your link here.

We are so lucky, and today we just want to share a little of our good fortune with Julie.”